IDC: Big business giving Apple major sales boost

A big boost in business sales in the most recent quarter helped offset a …

Analysis by market research firm IDC shows that Mac sales growth in the last fiscal quarter was nearly seven times that of the overall PC market with Apple outgrowing overall PCs for 19 consecutive quarters, or nearly five years running. But the Mac's biggest gains aren't in the education, home, or small business segments, where the Mac has traditionally thrived—they come from large businesses and government sales.

For the quarter ending December 2010, IDC recorded an overall 3.4 percent year-over-year growth for the PC market. Mac sales, on the other hand, grew 23.5 percent. Enterprise sales were a big part of the Mac's success; while overall PC sales to business grew 9.7 percent for the quarter, Macs were up 65.4 percent. Mac sales saw big gains in every business category, surpassing overall PC sales by large margins. And while sales to small businesses and home offices grew handsomely, the biggest growth area for the Mac was "very large business," where Mac sales doubled over the same quarter last year.

IDC

While government sales are a very small part of Mac sales—about 1 percent—growth in this segment is nearly 600 percent compared to the PC industry's 8.4 percent overall growth. That's a big jump over the 200 percent government sales growth the Mac enjoyed just two quarters ago.

Needham analyst Charlie Wolf is still citing a halo effect from Apple’s iOS devices for fueling the increased growth in the enterprise. In particular, he fingered the iPad as driving Mac adoption even more than the iPhone.

"The surge in Mac sales in the business market coincided with the introduction of the iPad in the second quarter of 2010," Wolf noted. While it's hard to show a direct cause-and-effect between the two events, Apple has highlighted the fact that 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies are working iPads into their IT infrastructure. "It's likely, then, that the halo effect emanating from the iPad will be far stronger than the iPhone halo effect in the business market if only because the iPad is a kissing cousin of Apple's family of notebook computers," according to Wolf.

Oddly, Apple posted a slight decline in education sales while the overall PC sales grew 3 percent in the same segment. Education has always been a traditionally strong market for Apple, though it has suffered overall declining sales in the segment for several years.

Apple's consumer focus is still apparent in sales growth in the "home" market segment, however, from which a majority of Mac sales come. While the overall industry saw a 0.6 percent decline in year-over-year sales, Apple managed to increase sales to consumers by 17.1 percent.

The recent increases in business sales have led to Apple creating a business sales specialist position at its retail stores. Apple has also made continual improvements to iOS to attract more enterprise customers. However, the company doesn't directly target enterprises with Macs or Mac OS X. In the last few years, Apple has discontinued its two major enterprise hardware products: the Xserve RAID and, more recently, the Xserve itself.

I've said this before and gotten beaten about the head and shoulders for saying it, but... A big reason for the new popularity of Apple computers in big business is that Windows boxes are locked down and monitored to a degree that makes them nearly unusable, particularly if you do any kind of software development. In my workplace the powers-that-be require Bit9 on all Windows PCs, and after a month or two of that, I switched to OS X as fast as my widdle feet could carry me.

Windows boxes are locked down and monitored to a degree that makes them nearly unusable,

Could you elaborate please? That seems more to be a company or IT policy choice. The computer is as open as the company allows it to be. At my company, which is a very big computer company, we have pretty much free reign. We have a mix of employees.

Seems like people would learn... Apple wants to sell you stuff now and then a year or two down the road, change the rules out from under you in their favor when they have you over a barrel. See the recent issues about 30% charge for required privilege of routing your charges through iTunes from iOS apps. See the issues before that where Apple wanted to ban all use of any interpreted languages and such from their mobile devices.

(BTW, you can thank "nerd rage" for stirring up attention to it so the FTC would cast an eye at Apple and have Apple back off of that requirement, thus helping you users dodge that bullet. Of course, then it was "Look... Apple is working with the people to sort this out! Aren't they swell!".)

Windows boxes are locked down and monitored to a degree that makes them nearly unusable,

Could you elaborate please? That seems more to be a company or IT policy choice. The computer is as open as the company allows it to be. At my company, which is a very big computer company, we have pretty much free reign. We have a mix of employees.

Just saying what has happened in one medium-sized organization. A government contractor, so there are regular security audits.

Of course, working for a "very large business" that contracts to the "government," I haven't seen any of this Apple love.

I have a nice enough laptop and monitor (couple years old), my phone was state of the art in 1999 and has a parallel line jack for my modem., and I get to buy my own business cards and water. And I'm one of the few that gets newer equipment.

I do contract software development for a very large US hardware/software company, and many if not most of the engineering, development and IT people are on Macs. Why? Well, a lot of back-end stuff is deployed to Linux these days, so it makes sense to have it on your desktop. But the Linux desktop (all variants) frankly sucks, particularly when you need to work with all the corporate stuff.

OS X hits the sweet spot: a proper Unix for development, and good commercial software support for interacting with Exchange, Webex, Office and the like.

Seems like people would learn... Apple wants to sell you stuff now and then a year or two down the road, change the rules out from under you in their favor when they have you over a barrel. See the recent issues about 30% charge for required privilege of routing your charges through iTunes from iOS apps. See the issues before that where Apple wanted to ban all use of any interpreted languages and such from their mobile devices.

(BTW, you can thank "nerd rage" for stirring up attention to it so the FTC would cast an eye at Apple and have Apple back off of that requirement, thus helping you users dodge that bullet. Of course, then it was "Look... Apple is working with the people to sort this out! Aren't they swell!".)

Windows boxes are locked down and monitored to a degree that makes them nearly unusable,

Could you elaborate please? That seems more to be a company or IT policy choice.

Yes it is IT policy. They would like all of their computers locked down, but they actually achieve it with windows, while Mac/Linux tends to fall off their radar. It is a combination of the fact that Windows makes it easy (group policy), and that IT just doesn't devote the same number of resources to Mac/Linux as they do to Windows.

Seems like people would learn... Apple wants to sell you stuff now and then a year or two down the road, change the rules out from under you in their favor when they have you over a barrel. See the recent issues about 30% charge for required privilege of routing your charges through iTunes from iOS apps. See the issues before that where Apple wanted to ban all use of any interpreted languages and such from their mobile devices.

(BTW, you can thank "nerd rage" for stirring up attention to it so the FTC would cast an eye at Apple and have Apple back off of that requirement, thus helping you users dodge that bullet. Of course, then it was "Look... Apple is working with the people to sort this out! Aren't they swell!".)

The large business sales is not surprising seeing as how many of them are sitting on piles of cash reserves. The government sales are surprising with all the austerity measures talk.

You think they're buying macs as what, status symbols? Face it, an $1800 mac laptop has a lower TCO over 4 years than a $1200 PC notebook does. The enterprise licensing of half a dozen security, monitoring, deployment, etc apps, combined with the complexities they bring, and the man hours to run and support them? Companies are not buying them because they cost more, they're buying them because they cost less, have less user downtime, and the out-of-the box software is good enough for most users.

Macs are easy to deploy, easy to monitor, run stable, and out of the box have more performance than most enterprise targeted laptop systems, and do great also running VMs (which are also easy to deploy, easier even than a native OS). They also back up easy, integrate into AD, talk to MS Exchange (without having to buy MS Office), keynote looks WAY better than PowerPoint, and since they're already in use heavily in the art, merketing, and iOS development groups (if not the java and web devs groups too), IT in big business is already completely familiar with integrating them.

A big firm I was with last year spent several months reviewing whether or not to put Mac minis on call center user desks instead of windows machines, after they finished migrating to Java based services, a VoIP network, and Voice XML. They were migrating off XP, and OS X out of the box (no added software), did 100% of what Windows 7 could, but it also required an Office license, an AV license, an SCCM/SCDM license, and the Macs were actually cheaper than the speced out Dell machines to start with. In the end they passed (CTO was in bed with Big Blue, and they deployed Lenovo machines instead, costing an expected $1.6m more over 4 years).

What I can make of this is that Mac marketshare in business and government is very small ~ 1%. So, these large percentage increases in the business and government sectors are still about relativly small numbers of personal computers.

Why the change? From the article;

Quote:

Needham analyst Charlie Wolf is still citing a halo effect from Apple’s iOS devices for fueling the increased growth in the enterprise. In particular, he fingered the iPad as driving Mac adoption even more than the iPhone.

What I think is happening is that the iPhone (and iPad) has broken the complete control of IS departments in certain companies and government agencies. And so a tiny few in business and govenment have been able to get out of the IS lockin to Windows. It could be government/business managers who have a lot of power or creative types who are very valuable to a company.

- Bottom line; it's a relatively small number of people who have been able to switch to the Mac at work in the ~ 1% of the Mac business/government market. From where I am in a company which gets government funding, there is zero effect with desktop OS sales. From what I see, US business and government is still a Windows world in regard to the PC OS.

Seems like people would learn... Apple wants to sell you stuff now and then a year or two down the road, change the rules out from under you in their favor when they have you over a barrel. See the recent issues about 30% charge for required privilege of routing your charges through iTunes from iOS apps. See the issues before that where Apple wanted to ban all use of any interpreted languages and such from their mobile devices.

(BTW, you can thank "nerd rage" for stirring up attention to it so the FTC would cast an eye at Apple and have Apple back off of that requirement, thus helping you users dodge that bullet. Of course, then it was "Look... Apple is working with the people to sort this out! Aren't they swell!".)

I work for a VERY large business that contracts to the government. No Macs here. My company PC is a P4 with 2G RAM running XP and Office 2007, my monitor is 22". The only reason I even get a 22" is that I'm a senior lead with a $90+ million budget and 50+ people working for me. My developers actually get dual 17's.

I'm not going to be buying another Mac for a while until I see what happens with the new App store. I just can't trust that company anymore given what they have been doing with iOS.

You've been drinking too much FUD juice.

All the haters are spreading the idea that Apple will lock down the Mac platform just like iOS. They're wrong on 2 counts: Apple locks down iOS because OF THE CARRIERS, in addition the the issues of simply only being able to carry software that's legal to actually sell, and a few consumer protective policies like apps actually have to be stable and work as advertised and all... The other thing is, THEY CAN'T LOCK IT DOWN, the supreme court already ruled that PC operating system vendors can NOT control what you choose to install (phones are different, due to FCC regulations, and the fact that you don;t technically own your phone... yea, read the fine print...)

Apple can control whats in the Mac App store, but they can NOT prevent side-loading your own apps from other sources in any way. Doing so is blatantly against the law. They have also clearly stated, the app store is a "convenience" but they're still encouraging the open source community in other areas. besides, how would anyone ever betas an app if they even could lock it down?

besides, if they locked it down, there's be no corporate apps. Microsoft is NOT going to let apple have 30% of every copy of Office, nor is Adobe, and all the other major name brands. The app store is about exposure, not control. It solves a problem macs have that PCs mostly don't (who do I find an app for mac that does X, and can i trust who sells it?).

You people all think appel is about control. Look a the rules: they're about good code practice, not stealing IP, not breaking laws, not breaking consumer confidence, not accessing data they don't have a need for (a video game doesn't need your contact's phone numbers), etc.

- Bottom line; it's a relatively small number of people who have been able to switch to the Mac at work in the ~ 1% of the Mac business/government market. From where I am in a company which gets government funding, there is zero effect with desktop OS sales. From what I see, US business and government is still a Windows world in regard to the PC OS.

A bit of that might have to do with enterprise focus of Windows and hardware vendors... things like next day on-site service, stuff like that. Or, you can handle that kind of yourself by buying 25% more machines than you need so you can swap one out with the person who has a down machine so someone can take make an appointment with the Apple Store and drive it over to have it fixed.

Also, when I worked in academia a few years, we had to contract out all hardware. We couldn't buy anything from a sole-source without a lot of paperwork and effort (partially to avoid corruption... someone writing bids that only their company, or a friend's company, could provide and also to avoid the company going under and having no second-source to fall back on for the hardware... basically, hardware that was fungible was easy to bid out, sole-source was a lot of work). So, if we could have pointed to two different vendors of Apple compatible hardware, it would have been very easy to bid out. Since only Apple makes OSX compatible hardware, they are sole-source.

If you sell next to nothing, then you can get huge increases from your base point.

Apple could get an extra twenty percent of the market worldwide, and that would mean that Windows machines sold would decline by around one percent.

Windows machines can't get another twenty percent, because that would put them over a hundred percent.

Well, Apple has about 12% now, so growing 20% more (each quarter, this is a quarterly number), that's a roughly 2% (a little more) increase in total market size. that means they'll eat 8-9% of the windows market in 2011. That's not chump change, and they've been growing faster than the market for 19 quarters (5 years), and showing signs of acceleration, not slowing.

Considering apple's 12% is about 40% of the total market proffit, if they grew but a total of 50% next year, heavily in the profitable business segments and the trend suggests, they could easily be half of all profit of all systems sold. Sneer if you want... the others are afraid.

Windows boxes are locked down and monitored to a degree that makes them nearly unusable,

Could you elaborate please? That seems more to be a company or IT policy choice.

Yes it is IT policy. They would like all of their computers locked down, but they actually achieve it with windows, while Mac/Linux tends to fall off their radar. It is a combination of the fact that Windows makes it easy (group policy), and that IT just doesn't devote the same number of resources to Mac/Linux as they do to Windows.

I think that is true, but I think that there is more to the argument than just "locked down". On my company provided laptop they have so much crap running on this "managed PC" that often it becomes completely unusable (Thanks, McAfee). In addition to 6-7 minute boot times it takes forever to get applications like Outlook up and running. After boot it is not uncommon for background tasks to completely chew up an entire core on a dual core system to run crap--I've got McAfee doing a scan while EFSAssistant.exe is encrypting files at the same time (that's on top of full disk encryption)--note to IT drones: hard disks don't work well when they're seeking all the time.. When that happens you might as well go away for an hour or two because you are NOT getting any work done. This happens AT LEAST twice a week for me. It's unbearable.

Sometimes I escape to my own Mac when working at home if I don't need access to email, but my workplace doesn't support Macs and it is simply impossible to have access to everything that I need to do my job on my own Mac--that's completely understandable, and by design. I can see why if your company gives you a choice why people would be moving as quickly as possible to a Mac.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

Sounds like he wants to keep control, to me. Granted, a bunch of nerd rage getting the FTC to cast an eye Apple's way forced them to back off of that policy, but it's clear what the underlying motive was in that case.

If you read the correspondence here ( http://gawker.com/#!5539717/steve-jobs- ... -from-porn ) Steve actually says "It's not about freedom, it's about doing the right thing for users" (well... you can believe that if you want). So... how do you "do the right thing for users" by simply having exposure? Surely you have to exert control to keep "doing the right thing for users".

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

Sounds like he wants to keep control, to me. Granted, a bunch of nerd rage getting the FTC to cast an eye Apple's way forced them to back off of that policy, but it's clear what the underlying motive was in that case.

If you read the correspondence here ( http://gawker.com/#!5539717/steve-jobs- ... -from-porn ) Steve actually says "It's not about freedom, it's about doing the right thing for users" (well... you can believe that if you want). So... how do you "do the right thing for users" by simply having exposure? Surely you have to exert control to keep "doing the right thing for users".

Context. Context.

If case you didn't notice, the thing he is talking about (Flash) is still available on Macs...

Maybe, maybe not. For now, the risk is enormously lower on a Mac than any Windows platform. Let me restate that: the Mac is probably at a similar level of risk as a Windows 7 box running draconian AV and anti-malware software that's chewing up a significant amount of resources. The risk on a Mac is significantly less than any naked Windows box.

Having said that, I think there is a chance that there will be significant outbreak on the Mac in the future. If Apple can stay ahead of the the threat curve and prepare for such a possibility then they can limit the damage. We shall see.

If case you didn't notice, the thing he is talking about (Flash) is still available on Macs...

Are you even pretending to think that Steve wouldn't ban it from there if there were any way possible? If he tried, all Apple users would praise it as the best thing ever despite it probably being illegal (which is why it hasn't been done yet).

Maybe, maybe not. For now, the risk is enormously lower on a Mac than any Windows platform. Let me restate that: the Mac is probably at a similar level of risk as a Windows 7 box running draconian AV and anti-malware software that's chewing up a significant amount of resources.

MSE... I don't even notice it running. AVG... yeah, I'm with you there. I hate that crap.

If case you didn't notice, the thing he is talking about (Flash) is still available on Macs...

Are you even pretending to think that Steve wouldn't ban it from there if there were any way possible? If he tried, all Apple users would praise it as the best thing ever despite it probably being illegal (which is why it hasn't been done yet).

You ran off the rails here. It doesn't matter if you think it looks better or not.If there is a corporate standard then everyone will expect to be using it. Unless your tools can interact with the corporate standards (something the fanboys are claiming over Linux), it doesn't matter how pretty they are.

Maybe, maybe not. For now, the risk is enormously lower on a Mac than any Windows platform. Let me restate that: the Mac is probably at a similar level of risk as a Windows 7 box running draconian AV and anti-malware software that's chewing up a significant amount of resources.

MSE... I don't even notice it running. AVG... yeah, I'm with you there. I hate that crap.

On the one hand, you have to run more stuff to clean up after Windows. On the other hand, it's rediculously easy to get cheaper general purpose desktops that have plenty of horsepower to counteract that aspect of Windows. The differences are quite dramatic. More cores, faster cores, more RAM, more disk and all a a lower price than Apple's cheapest offering.

If case you didn't notice, the thing he is talking about (Flash) is still available on Macs...

Are you even pretending to think that Steve wouldn't ban it from there if there were any way possible? If he tried, all Apple users would praise it as the best thing ever despite it probably being illegal (which is why it hasn't been done yet).

Now you're psychic too. Impressive.

Nope. Just making a prediction based on past observation. Time will easily reveal whether I'm right or wrong.

Maybe, maybe not. For now, the risk is enormously lower on a Mac than any Windows platform. Let me restate that: the Mac is probably at a similar level of risk as a Windows 7 box running draconian AV and anti-malware software that's chewing up a significant amount of resources.

MSE... I don't even notice it running. AVG... yeah, I'm with you there. I hate that crap.

McAffee sucks BIG TIME and don't get me started on Norton! I run Avast! at home and it is very turnkey and doesn't use much in the way of resources. I started with their free version and was so impressed I ponied up for the pay version--twice! My personal experience with Symantec was so painful that I hate that company with burning passion that will never fade.

I think that is true, but I think that there is more to the argument than just "locked down". On my company provided laptop they have so much crap running on this "managed PC" that often it becomes completely unusable (Thanks, McAfee). In addition to 6-7 minute boot times it takes forever to get applications like Outlook up and running. After boot it is not uncommon for background tasks to completely chew up an entire core on a dual core system to run crap--I've got McAfee doing a scan while EFSAssistant.exe is encrypting files at the same time (that's on top of full disk encryption)--note to IT drones: hard disks don't work well when they're seeking all the time.. When that happens you might as well go away for an hour or two because you are NOT getting any work done. This happens AT LEAST twice a week for me. It's unbearable.

Just wait until the IT drones get their act together and decide that they need to "manage" Macs like they do Windows. Horror will ensue and THAT will be the year of Linux on the desktop

As an aside, how does managing a deployment of say 10k Macs compare to a similar deployment of 10k Windows boxes? Consider that both deployments follow similar machine lockdown, security, and support policies.

iPads are a nightmare in the, "Enterprise" right now. If you have any concerns about security at all, anyway. There's no way to centrally manage them, there's no way to protect your company's data. They're the latest gee whiz toy that people want to use at work just because they want to. Until Apple gets serious about Enterprise support, as opposed to what they claim is such now, iOS devices are a plague on big businesses who care about things like SOX, PCI, or HIPAA compliance (as is appropriate.)

I think that is true, but I think that there is more to the argument than just "locked down". On my company provided laptop they have so much crap running on this "managed PC" that often it becomes completely unusable (Thanks, McAfee). In addition to 6-7 minute boot times it takes forever to get applications like Outlook up and running. After boot it is not uncommon for background tasks to completely chew up an entire core on a dual core system to run crap--I've got McAfee doing a scan while EFSAssistant.exe is encrypting files at the same time (that's on top of full disk encryption)--note to IT drones: hard disks don't work well when they're seeking all the time.. When that happens you might as well go away for an hour or two because you are NOT getting any work done. This happens AT LEAST twice a week for me. It's unbearable.

Just wait until the IT drones get their act together and decide that they need to "manage" Macs like they do Windows. Horror will ensue and THAT will be the year of Linux on the desktop

As an aside, how does managing a deployment of say 10k Macs compare to a similar deployment of 10k Windows boxes? Consider that both deployments follow similar machine lockdown, security, and support policies.

That's a really good point. I have no doubt that even corporate IT could make a Mac painful to use. To be honest, I expect that in the fullness of time work computers will be consumerized. The model IT will move in is you get a yearly stipend to purchase your own laptop. Then they'll install something like Chrome OS in a VM and lock it down every which way to Sunday. Basically, this is the old Net PC idea with an added twist. If that happens Microsoft is going to be in a lot of trouble because they're going to lose a lot of corporate desktop licenses and it's only a hop-skip-and-jump to cloud services and applications.

If case you didn't notice, the thing he is talking about (Flash) is still available on Macs...

Are you even pretending to think that Steve wouldn't ban it from there if there were any way possible? If he tried, all Apple users would praise it as the best thing ever despite it probably being illegal (which is why it hasn't been done yet).

Now you're psychic too. Impressive.

Nope. Just making a prediction based on past observation. Time will easily reveal whether I'm right or wrong.

I don't think this is ever going to happen on Macs. My prediction is that the Mac App store will become more prominent over time and signed curated applications will increase the practical security of the Mac platform. Applications installed through the Mac App store will become a bigger part of the market and most people will install their applications through that mechanism and the more technically minded will also use things like MacPorts for things like TeX; Apple will never lock down the Mac like iOS--the former is a computer and the latter is an appliance. That's my take on it.

Maybe, maybe not. For now, the risk is enormously lower on a Mac than any Windows platform. Let me restate that: the Mac is probably at a similar level of risk as a Windows 7 box running draconian AV and anti-malware software that's chewing up a significant amount of resources.

MSE... I don't even notice it running. AVG... yeah, I'm with you there. I hate that crap.

McAffee sucks BIG TIME and don't get me started on Norton! I run Avast! at home and it is very turnkey and doesn't use much in the way of resources. I started with their free version and was so impressed I ponied up for the pay version--twice! My personal experience with Symantec was so painful that I hate that company with burning passion that will never fade.

Same here. I tell everyone who asks to use MSE (of course, also upgrade to Windows 7 64b if not already). I have never noticed it using resources except once when I purposefully told it to do a full scan of my entire system (~5TB of data and several million files, IIRC) right then.

If case you didn't notice, the thing he is talking about (Flash) is still available on Macs...

Are you even pretending to think that Steve wouldn't ban it from there if there were any way possible? If he tried, all Apple users would praise it as the best thing ever despite it probably being illegal (which is why it hasn't been done yet).

Now you're psychic too. Impressive.

Nope. Just making a prediction based on past observation. Time will easily reveal whether I'm right or wrong.

I don't think this is ever going to happen on Macs. My prediction is that the Mac App store will become more prominent over time and signed curated applications will increase the practical security of the Mac platform. Applications installed through the Mac App store will become a bigger part of the market and most people will install their applications through that mechanism and the more technically minded will also use things like MacPorts for things like TeX; Apple will never lock down the Mac like iOS--the former is a computer and the latter is an appliance. That's my take on it.